


AOC

by redandgold



Series: banterville [3]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, VALENCIA WON NOTHING HURTS HERES FLUFF, theres another character but....i wont tag him for purposes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 07:06:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5996203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redandgold/pseuds/redandgold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie takes Gary on a Valentines' Day trip. To Bordeaux. To drink wine. Jamie will soon learn the meaning of regret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	AOC

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neyvenger (jjjat3am)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjjat3am/gifts).



>   
>  _The appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC), which translates as "controlled designation of origin", is the French certification granted to certain French geographical indications for wines, cheeses, butters._
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> I can't remember exactly how it came up but Carraville on a wine trip was just too good to miss. Thanks [Neyvenger](archiveofourown.org/users/jjjat3am/pseuds/Neyvenger>Neyvenger</a>%20for%20what%20happens%20in%207.!%20<3) for what happens in 7.!  
> 

There was picturesque, and then there was Bordeaux - sun shining, birds chirping, endless rows of grapevines stretching across the rolling green slopes till they faded into the horizon. Gary put his hands on his hips, wrapped himself in the magnificence that was one of nature's finest landscapes, and frowned.

"How is this in  _ any  _ way better than sitting at home in pants watching all six volumes of  _ Premier League Classic Matches  _ back to back?" he demanded, folding his arms and scrunching up his nose. Jamie grinned languidly at him. 

"Shut up, Neville. You're just grumpy from the flight," he smirked, blithely failing to acknowledge that Gary was grumpy all the time. "Maybe next time we should drive instead." 

The inception of an unfortunate idea Jamie would later come to regret notwithstanding, Gary had to acknowledge that it was a rather lovely day. "I suppose it is better than listening to Phil enthuse about the latest and best frog feed he's experimenting with," he admitted, leaning into Jamie's shoulder as they strolled down the gravelly path. "If I hear one more word to do with amphibians, I'm going to strap him to a chair and make him watch while I sell them on eBay." 

"Mean," Jamie snorted. "Make sure you disqualify Redders or he's going to put in an exorbitant winning bid, return the frogs to Phil and snog him while that Peaches song plays in the background." 

Gary blanched. "Please refrain from casting my brother in uncomfortably Scouse fantasies. One Neville to one Jamie is more than enough." 

Jamie wouldn't stop warbling  _ reunited, and it feels so good _ until they reached the chateau, by which time the colour of Gary's face had almost succeeded in making his old chant literal. Their guide answered the door, looked understandably perturbed, and it took a few harried lines to explain to him that Englishmen didn't usually resemble beetroots. 

"Very good," he said finally, clapping his hands. "We start here, oui? My name is Hugo and I will be your guide for today. We have much ground to cover."

"What sort of wines are we going to try?" Jamie asked, ignoring the look of sudden panic that crossed Gary's face. 

"You said it was cheese," he hissed, trying (and failing) not to attract Hugo's attention. 

"I said cheese and wine. Mostly wine."

"I didn't hear that!" 

"I think you were yelling at Andy to change the colour scheme of the stats chart while digging up your seventieth clip on Ramsey, editing your newspaper column and working out the solution to world poverty in your head when I told you."

"Well, then, you shouldn't have told me when I was busy!" Gary protested, pawing at the ground while Hugo attempted to find something interesting in the distance to look at.

"Then I'd never be able to tell you anything at all, Mr. Reads His Email In The Bath." 

"Not  _ always _ ." 

"Yes, always. Anyway, I was told you liked a good drink."

"It depends on your definition of 'like' and 'drink'."

"It's Bordeaux. It's going to be fine." Jamie returned to Hugo, vaguely surprised that the Frenchman hadn't quietly sidled off and abandoned them in favour of sanity. "Sorry. I would say he's uptight, but that would sweep the Understatement of the Year awards. Returning to my question?" 

"Erm. Yes." Hugo's eye twitched, as if he was just beginning to understand that he would have to spend the next few hours in their company. "We're going to try - "

 

**1\. Château Saint-Pierre**

"2009. Remember that year? Remember the Champions League that year?" Jamie sniped, holding up the glass to his eye level and squinting at the deep claret. 

Gary gave Jamie a glare that would have killed a lesser man. "I don't know, Carragher," he said, sniffing at the wine suspiciously. "Which would you rather, getting beat in the final by the best team in the world, or breaking up your best midfield partnership and getting knocked out by  _ Chelsea _ ?"

Mournfully, Jamie downed all of his glass in one shot, ignoring Hugo's scandalised look and admonishments to 'smell' the wine before drinking. Either way, it tasted good; just the ticket to drown his having to sing Phil Collins to lull Stevie to sleep while he babbled on about Xabi's thighs.

Gary tried just a little bit harder. He listened attentively to the swirling of the cup, took a deep breath, and tried a sip. A curious expression came over him, almost akin to the one Sepp Blatter got when asked a difficult question. 

At Hugo's prompting and Jamie's judgement, he managed to down the rest of the glass with no seeming cause for concern. As they left the chateau, Gary asked, "how much is the alcohol percentage in Bordeaux wines?" 

Hugo shrugged. "About 14%. It has been getting higher in recent years." 

"How about a bottle of Somersby's, Carra?"

"What, the cider for wimps? I dunno. Can't be more than 5%, tops. Haven't had that since it was the only thing I could persuade Houllier didn't count when he banned me from drinking in '98." 

Gary paled.

 

**2\. Le Caillou Blanc**

"You'll like this one," Hugo said, having finally cottoned on to Gary's apprehension. "It's only 11%." 

"That's still 6% more than alcohol should be," Gary said sternly, completely missing the point or logic of alcohol percentages.

Jamie by far preferred the red variety of fermenting grapes, but the Talbot's sweetness offset by grassy acidity almost won him over. "Sweetness offset by grassy acidity," he repeated aloud after he'd finished the glass. "Oh my god. I'm turning into a sodding Frenchman." 

Hugo smiled encouragingly.

Gary drank half of it with a laboriousness usually only known to miners and pregnant women. As he was walking back to the car, he missed a step and giggled inappropriately at a stone on the pavement, which made Jamie raise an eyebrow.

 

**3\. Château Beychevelle**

Jamie rather liked this one. It was nice and dense, and while he wouldn't exactly subscribe to Hugo's pretentious "a voluptuous arousing of the senses with a sweet kiss of sun-warmed currants and and the fresh notes of dark chocolate", he did ask for a second glass.

Gary, improbably, had taken two sips and was staggering around in a circle, staring at everything with a look of wonder on his face much like Scholes whenever van Gaal had a good game. "Jamie!" he called, his voice gone all floaty and distant. "Jamie, what's that blue thing up there?" 

"...the sky," said Jamie, suddenly doubting the wisdom of choosing Bordeaux over six volumes of  _ Premier League Classic Matches.  _ "Y'know. Like. Where we. Work." 

"Oh?" asked Gary in a voice that made Jamie regret ever mentioning it. "How do we get there?" His eyes widened into saucers. "Can we  _ fly _ ?" 

Jamie mumbled through his facepalm, "no. No, we can't." 

"It's. So. Beautiful." Gary turned to look at Jamie, his eyes gleaming with a fervency Jamie wasn't sure he liked. "Almost as beautiful as your face."

Jamie was only now starting to remember what had happened after he'd sent those bottles of Grey Goose. "Will you not?" he hissed, poking Gary's cheek. "Fuck's sake, the next thing I know, you'll be writing fucking poetry." 

"How do I love thee?" Gary said dreamily, linking his arm with Jamie's. "Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height of, erm. That blue thing up there." 

"SKY," Jamie yelled, disentangling himself from Gary and storming back to Hugo, who was trying very hard not to burst into hysterical laughter. 

 

**4\. Château Branaire-Ducru**

"Maybe we shouldn't pour him a glass," Jamie said to Hugo. At least, this was what he would have said had Gary not leaned over, snatched his drink out of his hand, and downed it faster than Phil could drag frogs into a conversation.

" _ Mate _ ," said Jamie, aghast. 

Gary danced down the path in a little jig, giggling uncontrollably. By 'giggling uncontrollably', Jamie wanted to stress that he meant 'literally saying the words 'hee hee hee' like no one ever'. He only wished that he could have been misusing the word literally as the average internet user did.

"Carra," Gary giggled, beckoning him closer. "Carra, come look at this." 

Reluctantly Jamie complied. "If you're going to ask me what that green stuff on the ground is, I'm going to fly home myself." 

"No. Noooo. Come look. It reminds me of you."

Jamie looked. It was a grape that had rolled off its vine, been forgotten, and was as a consequence sour-looking and wrinkly. Which, if he was being absolutely honest, wasn't the most inaccurate comparison. He opened his mouth to say something, only to be cut off by Gary picking up the grape and rubbing it lovingly against his face. 

Jamie retreated, the depth of his disturbance written all over his face. "Seriously?" he asked Hugo. "You're not bothered by this?"

Hugo shrugged. "I would not want to be you, but I think it is hilarious." 

Jamie glowered all of the way to lunch. It was difficult to be amiable when stuck with an indifferent Frenchman and a boyfriend so drunk that, if this were Tintin, the spiral above his head would resemble a tornado.

 

**5\. Roc des Chevaliers**

The perils of getting used to alcohol were that the option of getting really drunk in order to not-care about someone else really drunk was very difficult. Jamie must've been on what, his sixth glass?, and he was still unfortunately sober. Which meant that he couldn't tune out Gary's crawling under the table and hugging (the polite term for what he was doing) its leg while continuing to sodding giggle.

"I have to be seen in public with this," Jamie said disbelievingly.

"You  _ are  _ being seen in public with this," Hugo corrected him.

Jamie puts his head in his hands and tried his best to ignore the fact that Gary had moved on from the table leg to his.

 

**6\. Croix de Beaucaillou**

"Carraaaaaaaaaa." Gary pulled on Jamie's shirt sleeve. "Have I ever told you about Simon Brown?" 

"No," Jamie said slowly, wondering why the name sounded so familiar. 

Gary proceeded, through intermittent and vaguely terrifying tongue-wagging, to tell him about how he'd ended up in hospital under a fake name after throwing up outside a Chinese diner on six glasses of cider.

"Six glasses." Jamie pinched his nose. "Of  _ cider. _ "

Gary nodded proudly. "Somersby's." 

" _ Somersby's _ ."

"Mhm. That's the 5% one, right, you were saying? That's a lot of alcohol, innit?" 

" _ 5% _ ." 

"Mate," Gary said in a moment of genuine and circumstantially ironic concern, "are you okay? Why d'you keep repeating things?" 

"Am I o - " Jamie began, before shaking his head incredulously. "No. No, I'm not okay. I'm not okay because you are  _ definitely  _ not okay, and this  _ trip  _ is not okay, and Valentine's Day is not okay, and France is not okay - " 

"Eh," Hugo said. 

"- sorry, Hugo, and the prick who thought this was a good idea is not okay, and Gary what the fuck are you doing - "

"ERMAGERD," Gary was squealing in a pitch that made Jamie wish he would both whine and wine less. "ERMAGERD CARRA IT'S A FLOWER." 

Jamie removed Gary's grabby hands from the flower and offered the subject an apologetic smile. "No, Gary," he said with the resignation of a man who had recently reviewed all of his life choices and realised he regretted everything. "That's someone's nose."

 

**7\. Domaine de Montcalmès**

Hugo had wisely suggested a (very early) dinner and Jamie had (very readily) complied. He doubted that Gary was going to last very much longer, closer as he was to the Chinese diner than the first glass of cider. 

A plate of food seemed to sober Gary up for a while - 'a while' meaning five seconds before he'd completely wiped his plate clean. Before Jamie knew it, something was pinching his - 

"CARRA BUTT." 

Jamie let out a string of words that probably scandalised his fellow diners more than Gary's spontaneous declaration. 

"It's squishy," Gary announced, like he was a fucking connoisseur. "Squishy Carra butt. Honk!" 

Jamie looked hopelessly at Hugo for help. Hugo was far too busy choking on his cheesecake to offer any constructive advice.

"Neville. Stop touching my butt, will you?" Jamie whispered, shifting uncomfortably, his face heating up the way Arsenal's end of season form didn't.

"Good evening, Mr. Butt," Gary said seriously, leaning down so that his head was level with Jamie's butt in what was most charitably described as a compromising scenario. Jamie sincerely hoped that Hugo would die from the cheesecake. "You're very squishy, aren't you? Do you happen to know my friend Nicky? Is he your cousin?" 

" _ Gary Alexander Neville, stop talking to my butt."  _ It was not a sentence that Jamie thought he'd ever be saying, nor did it give him any pleasure to be saying it. Gary giggled. 

"Not yours," he said, patting it affectionately. "My butt. All mine to touch." 

Well. Fuck him if there wasn't something weirdly sweet about that. The frown on Jamie's face softened a little, and he could almost remember why he'd fallen for this ridiculous Manc in the first place. 

Until the ridiculous Manc threw up on his shoes.

 

**8\. Water**

Somehow the three of them managed to struggle back to the hotel room in one piece, Jamie and Hugo propping up one half each of the unnecessarily heavy Gary and dumping him on the bed in a huff. "Ta," Jamie said, giving Hugo a fair bit more than he should have to compensate. 

"Not at all," Hugo said, pocketing the cash. "It is always a pleasure to watch the English make fools of themselves." 

Once Hugo had left, Jamie collapsed onto the bed next to Gary, who was finally feeling the effects of two and a half whole glasses of alcohol. "Jeeesus," he moaned, curling up into a ball and nuzzling his head against Jamie's chest. "What happened?" 

"Something you're going to regret tomorrow," Jamie murmured sleepily. 

"Oh, not just me," Gary mumbled, closing his eyes. "I'm the worst person for a hangover. I revert to pre-Sky grumpy bastard and don't stop complaining about the tiniest things for three days."

Jamie had known many sleepless nights over the years. That night was one of the longest.

 

**9\. Coffee**

After breakfast, and having been exposed to the full wrath of Gary Hungover Neville, Jamie had had enough. As Gary ranted about the sacrilege of cappuccinos to a couple of bemused, slightly horror-struck French diners, he snuck off and dialled a number, waiting impatiently for someone to pick up the phone. A familiar voice on the other end finally said, "hello?"

"For fuck's sake," Jamie exploded, unleashing all of the pent-up anger that yesterday and the forthcoming three days would afford him. "When you said that Gary was great fun to drink with and that wine tasting with him would be an unforgettable experience, embarrassment, humiliation and incessant irascibility was  _ not  _ what I had in mind." 

"Funny," said Scholesy. "Sounds exactly like what  _ I  _ had in mind."   
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> 1\. They're travelling around Saint-Julien AOC in Bordeaux - I did research and everything!!! All wine names are accurate! All percentages are accurate! Yey research!  
> 2\. The 'unfortunate idea' Jamie plants in Gary's mind is [ROAD TRIP](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5769916) (chronologically comes after)  
> 3\. The Grey Goose episode was [Christmas last year](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5474708)  
> 4\. Let's ignore the illogicalness of continuing to drink after Gaz is totally smashed, yeah?  
> 5\. The Simon Brown episode was when Gary was like 20 and they were celebrating something (I can't remember...too many trophies) and he really did end up in hospital after passing out outside a Chinese diner  
> 6\. Happy Valentines Day!! <3


End file.
